Jury clears Suffolk officers of excessive force in case of Jericho woman whose arm was broken during arrest

A Long Island federal jury cleared two current and two retired Suffolk County police officers of any civil liability in a $9 million police brutality case brought against them and the county by the widower of a Jericho woman whose arm was broken after she led officers on a 13-mile car pursuit.

The jury decided that retired officers Charles Tramontana and Jesus Faya and current officers Michael Sweet and Argand Reyes did not use excessive force during the arrest of Maryann Ost Chernick on Feb. 9, 2019.

"I was confident that we would get this verdict because myself and the other officers performed our duties as is our sworn oath," Tramontana said after the verdict.

Chernick, who later pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of prescription medication, had been taking pain medication for stomach cancer when she backed into a CVS pharmacy in her 2018 Lexus and drove away.

A bystander saw the fender bender and called police, who caught up with her heading west on the Long Island Expressway.

The officers tried to get the woman to pull over, but she ignored them. Her attorneys, Steven Harfenist and Gustave Passanante, said she believed they were responding to another emergency.

The officers followed her back to her Jericho home on Hunt Drive where she blew through a security gate and stopped in her driveway, according to testimony.

The officers confronted the 5-foot-6, 110-pound woman as she tried to punch in the keycode to her garage and brought her to the ground before handcuffing her.

Harfenist said the result was a spiral fracture of her right arm, requiring eight hours of surgery. Photos entered into evidence show Chernick with blood on her face that the lawyer said she suffered during the arrest.

"I don’t know the name of the medicine that I took," she told officers, according to arrest records.

Deputy county attorney Stacy Skorupa told the jury during closing arguments that the officers "feared for their safety and the safety of others" not knowing why Chernick ignored their attempts to stop her.

"She was not going to surrender that night," Skorupa said during her summation. "That was the consequence of her own actions. Her behavior and her behavior alone."

Jury foreman Greg Clark, a motorsports photographer from Nassau County, said after about a day of deliberations, the panel could not find that the officers intentionally broke Chernick’s arm.

"It had to do with having intent and that wasn’t clear to us," Clark said. He said the fact that Chernick died in 2020 and was not able to testify was a handicap for the case.

"The four people who were there to testify had a vested interest in their own defense," he said. "It’s one of those days that you wish something went differently for someone you don’t know."

Clark also said he did not fully believe the officers’ testimony during the weeklong civil trial in Central Islip.

"I did not find that their stories matched up, but that wasn’t what we were there to find," he said. "There’s never a good enough reason for police to break someone’s arm."

Chernick’s widower, Ira Chernick, who continued the case after his wife died, said he was "disappointed" by the jury’s verdict.

"They beat her up," he said. "They shouldn’t have done it. I’m not surprised. I’m a little disappointed. I wanted justice for Maryann."

The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office said they felt vindicated in fighting the case.

"The jury recognized and acknowledged what we have always known — that our officers conducted themselves entirely appropriately and within the bounds of the law. We thank them for their service and careful attention to this case," county attorney Chris Clayton said in a statement to Newsday.